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In this thread, I am going to address a number of different passages from the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. I will be talking about different issues with the material contained in the passages.

The two main ideas underpinning my writing here are that all people have worth, value, dignity, and basic human rights,and that those aspects must be respected and must not be violated at any time in this universe.

I would ask that all folks involved, starting with myself, keep it civil, and avoid having this thread descend into a pit like the antinatalism thread did. Thanks!

Stoning

Stoning is a horrific way to put someone to death. Here’s a link to a video on YouTube showing a woman being stoned (the film is based on a true story):

If the people had to die (I’ll address this later on), then I could think of several ways that would have been more humane, including drowning, suffocating, beheading, and hanging. Those methods are still horrific, but they are more humane than stoning…

Perhaps you could contend that stoning was used as a deterrent, but again, there’s human rights to keep in mind. A punishment cannot infringe upon an individual’s human rights. If it's not severe enough to deter people, that's just too bad. And besides, as I will cover with these stoning laws, scaring people into moral conduct doesn't really address the heart and free will decision making of the individual. And that is ultimately what is most important, isn’t it?

Some of the laws involve conduct being punished that does not warrant death, and it wouldn't matter if they were drowned, beheaded, etc, they simply aren't crimes worthy of punishment by death.

Deuteronomy 22:13-21

13 If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her 14 and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity,’ 15 then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate. 16 And the father of the young woman shall say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man to marry, and he hates her; 17 and behold, he has accused her of misconduct, saying, “I did not find in your daughter evidence of virginity.” And yet this is the evidence of my daughter's virginity.’ And they shall spread the cloak before the elders of the city. 18 Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him, 19 and they shall fine him a hundred shekels[c] of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin[d] of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days. 20 But if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, 21 then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done an outrageous thing in Israel by whoring in her father's house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst."

There are a number of issues with this passage:

Guilty until proven innocent

This law holds the woman guilty until proven innocent. The woman and her parents have to prove that she is innocent. If you use guilty until proven innocent, anyone can be accused of something, and unless their innocence can be proved, then they get punished. This really becomes a problem with situations where someone is innocent but they can't prove it. If they are held guilty until proven innocent, then you could end up punishing an innocent person.

Also, it’s simply unfair, unjust, and intellectually dishonest to hold someone guilty until proven innocent, especially when you do that on the basis of some guy making a claim. The man should have to prove she was not a virgin, not the other way around. Surely God would know better than this…

Intimate life of a couple

It’s messed up that the intimate life of a couple is brought before the community like this. It’s really not the community’s business, nor should they be presiding over an issue like this, and then carrying out punishments based on the outcome of the case.

The “cloak”

I’m not sure what “the cloak” was. If I had to guess, I would say it was probably some type of cloth item kept near the couple the first time they had sex. Regardless of what exactly it was, it was an item that was near them when they had sex, and was thus an intimate item. It’s kinda weird, as well as messed up, that an intimate item like this is brought before the community. I could maybe understand if it was an issue like rape, murder, etc, but that wasn't what this law dealt with.

The presence of blood or lack thereof on the “cloak” was supposed to prove her innocence or prove her guilt. There is a MAJOR flaw with this. Anyone with decent knowledge of female anatomy and physiology should know that a woman's hymen can break before she ever has sex...I hope I am not getting too graphic here, but also, some women have almost no hymen, or no hymen at all. Because of this, it was possible for them to put an innocent woman to death if the presence of blood or lack thereof on the woman's garment was the criteria used to determine whether the woman was innocent or guilty...

What if she was a virgin and the cloak did have blood on it, which would have kept her from being put to death, but then they lost it, or it got destroyed in a fire, or got accidentally thrown out? She would have gotten put to death even though she was innocent. And, that is part of why it was a bad idea to hold her guilty until proven innocent...

What if the woman wasn't a virgin, but then she or her parents sprinkled human or animal blood on the cloak before they brought it before the community? This law makes it easy to cheat the system and get away with it.

Stoned to death

As i addressed earlier, stoning is a horrific way to kill someone. If she was found guilty, she was stoned to death because she was found guilty of lying about being a virgin. That's messed up! It would be messed up today. And, it would have been messed up back then for the same reasons it is messed up today. Dishonesty is a serious matter, but it's not serious enough to put someone to death over...A payment to the man and/or confinement (i.e. jail) at most would have been appropriate.

Locked into marriage

God says that if the woman is shown to be innocent, they are to stay married, and they can never divorce. That is absurd...Make her marry the man who hates her, has accused her of misconduct, and has brought a bad name upon her? Why would she want to be married to him for the rest of her life?

Perhaps it wouldn't have been a normal marriage, but rather more like an ex-spouse paying alimony, and the man and the woman could each enter into a romantic relationship with other individuals and then get married to those individuals, but if that is the case, why doesn't it say that or use a different word to denote that type of arrangement? All it says is that she shall be his wife, and he can never divorce her for all his days. So, it must have been a normal marriage, and they couldn't seek romantic relationships outside of that and then get married...That’s not ok, and is especially unfair to the woman. It's already bad enough that she has been accused of misconduct, but then on top of that, instead of letting her find a husband, she is stuck married for the rest of her life to a man she has no romantic interest in.

The man’s punishment

I think a payment (Shouldn't it go to the wife and not her dad, seeing as how she is the primary, if not sole, injured party here?) and perhaps also confinement is reasonable, but corporal punishment is not appropriate here, and not ok.

At her father’s door

Stoning her to death at her father's door? That's horrible. If they just had to stone her, take her out in a field. But, don't do it on her father's doorstep!

It's not even necessarily her father’s fault. It might be, but the law doesn’t specify whether or not her father was at fault. It just says that she is to be brought to her father’s door; the way laws and codes work, when it gives an instruction, unless exceptions are listed, the law or code applies in ALL cases. So, regardless of whether the father was at fault, she is brought to her father’s door and stoned there. That is so messed up, Brian.

Think about what it would be like for you if you had a wife and a daughter, and you were in this situation. You toiled to support her, and you had poured your life into raising her, and then she is brought to your doorstep and shot to death for a crime that you and your wife may not even share blame for...That would be absolutely horrible, unjust, and unfair. It's horrible today, and it wouldn't have been any less horrible, and any more ok, back then. I’ll deal with this a lot in this document, but, and I’m saying this as respectfully as I can, when it comes to Old Testament issues, people seem to either lose sight of, or don’t think about, the fact that those were human beings back then, just like we are today.

Payment

As I mentioned in point 4, shouldn't the payment go to the wife and not the father? She is the injured party, not the father…

Punishment double-standard

Notice how if the man is found guilty, he is punished with a payment to the father of the wife and a whipping, and yet if the wife is found guilty, she is stoned to death. The wife's crime is not so much worse than the husband's crime so as to command such a chasm between each gender's punishment in terms of severity. Arguably, the husband’s crime is worse, as the wife merely presented that she was a virgin when she was not, while the husband’s dishonesty is more active, involves defamation of character, a false claim about the sexual value of the woman (which was important due to the structure of the community; the structure was flawed, but that's beside the point here), and making a false claim that negatively impacts the woman, and yet he is only whipped and has to pay a fine…..How is that not a double standard?

Law double standard

Why is the man allowed to claim the woman isn't a virgin, but then there is nothing dealing with the case of the woman claiming the man wasn't a virgin, wherein the man and his parents have to prove he is a virgin?

This law is not good, not holy, not intelligent, not noble, not wise, not fair, and not just. It is completely at odds with God’s nature and attributes, and what we have come to think about Him.

Even if you can find a way to rationalize, justify, and otherwise defend all the other OT material, there’s no getting around the guilty until proven innocent issue. That isn't an issue of “they couldn't handle the full extent of morality back then.” It's not even necessarily a matter of morality (although I do think it is immoral), but a matter of rationality, justice, fairness, and practicality, and functional legal proceedings.

There is no way this law came from an intelligent, wise, fair, just, good, practical, omniscient, and holy deity…

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

"18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, 19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, 20 and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21 Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear."

What decent parents would bring their son to the elders if they knew what would happen?

Why not confine him or simply banish him from the community?

We tolerate people’s bad behavior perhaps too much in modern society, but even if we clamp down, we aren't going to put them to death. Putting them to death was an overreaction. There was no good reason to do it then, and no good reason to do it now.

Numbers 15:32-36

"32 While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. 34 They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. 35 And the Lord said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” 36 And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the Lord commanded Moses."

This is absolutely absurd. He is collecting sticks; he isn't burning the camp down.

Deuteronomy 13:6-11

"6 If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you."

A few issues here:

This doesn't really address the offenders’ hearts, and why they were trying to entice people to serve other gods. This is more of a fear tactic. The kind of deity I would want to serve wouldn’t threaten people with death if said people go serve other gods, regardless of whether those other gods are real spiritual entities or not.

It's also really messed up that people are being told to put their family members and friends to death based on the fact that they are trying to entice them to serve other gods. Yeah, sure, that's a serious matter, but that's no reason to put them to death. I suggest a “strikes” system would be appropriate. After two-three strikes, they either get confined or get banished from the community.

In all honesty, I haven't read your entire post, but it is, IMHO, operating from a fundamentally flawed perspective.

The Old Testament and the Gospels do not describe the same "God".

The God of the Old Testament is a "God of Law".

He provides his rules and his punishment for those who transgress.

It's quite consistent in this regard.

Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah, plagues of Egypt, etc.

You frack with his laws, you get thumped.

The God of the Gospels, is a "God of love".

One can consider Jesus as the new branch manager sent here to explain the new corporate policy of the CEO.

There is only a problem if one tries to equate the two parts of the Bible.

They're separate, and the only problem arises if one tries to equate the two versions of God.

BTW, the Muslims look at these two books in a similar manner.

From their perspective they view it as follows.

God first tried the God of Law bit with the Jews.

He realized that didn't quite work right, so he came back with Jesus and the God of Love.

Nope, that didn't quite work right either.

Finally he settled on a God of Justice (i.e., he combined the previous two) and reached his Goldilocks point.

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In all honesty, I haven't read your entire post, but it is, IMHO, operating from a fundamentally flawed perspective.

The Old Testament and the Gospels do not describe the same "God".

The God of the Old Testament is a "God of Law".

He provides his rules and his punishment for those who transgress.

It's quite consistent in this regard.

Noah, Sodom and Gomorrah, plagues of Egypt, etc.

You frack with his laws, you get thumped.

The God of the Gospels, is a "God of love".

One can consider Jesus as the new branch manager sent here to explain the new corporate policy of the CEO.

There is only a problem if one tries to equate the two parts of the Bible.

They're separate, and the only problem arises if one tries to equate the two versions of God.

BTW, the Muslims look at these two books in a similar manner.

From their perspective they view it as follows.

God first tried the God of Law bit with the Jews.

He realized that didn't quite work right, so he came back with Jesus and the God of Love.

Nope, that didn't quite work right either.

Finally he settled on a God of Justice (i.e., he combined the previous two) and reached his Goldilocks point.

There was more to come, that was just part of it.

According to the Old Testament, the god of the Israelites commanded this stuff. And, Christians claim they follow the same god.

You seem to be coming at this more from a descriptive and/or lliterary analysis angle, whereas I am coming at it from an ethics/morality standpoint. Atheists and other secularists really have nothing to defend here, it's the Christians (and also the Jews since they claim the OT, although there are minor differences depending on translation, and they call it Ha Tanakh) who must answer for this mess.

In the Old Testament, there are several places where God commands mass killing, at least one place where mass killing occurs at the behest of God, and at least one place where it occurs with the apparent approval of God. Now, my problem with these commands and occurrences isn't necessarily the fact that people are being killed; unfortunately, sometimes the right thing to do is to kill someone (police work, self-defense, defense of others, etc). My issue is with who was included in God’s commands and the occurrences, as well as the method and possible methods of killing.

Deuteronomy 20

For an example of God commanding people to kill, consider Deuteronomy 20:10-18: “10 When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. 11 And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. 12 But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. 13 And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, 14 but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. 15 Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. 16 But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, 17 but you shall devote them to complete destruction,[a] the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, 18 that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.”

Because God said to leave alive nothing that breathes, in order for the Israelites to obey God’s command, they would have had to kill pregnant women, infants, young children, and special needs people (down syndrome, autism, etc) who were in a given city...How is that not evil, horrific, and disturbing? I mean really? Are we just supposed to pretend this isn't in the Bible?

I’m well aware that a common apologetic answer, as well as an answer that can be inferred or directly derived from scripture, is that the Canaanite culture at the time was corrupt, and God didn't want the Israelites to be influenced by the Canaanite culture.

Even if this was true of the adults, that's not really a good reason to kill them, as evil cultures have existed in the past and never really faced any sort of “cleansing.” If you look back through human history, and look at how many cultures and empires have been wicked, and did way more evil, and caused more suffering, than the Canaanites, and yet weren’t targeted for extermination by God’s chosen people at the command of God. The Mayans, Egyptians, Romans, Aztecs, Mongols, Nazis, Spanish, Vikings, Catholics, British, French, Americans, etc.

This passage contains no specific instructions concerning how they were to kill people, but considering the rest of the Old Testament, they probably would have put the people to death with swords. There's a few basic ways to kill someone with a sword: Slitting the throat, beheading, stabbing the heart, cutting the stomach open, and cutting open the femoral artery (I don’t know the extent of their medical knowledge at the time, so they may have not have even known about this method). Now, imagine anyone from those categories of people I listed being killed in any of those ways.It’s horrifying, isn't It?

Also think about this: If any pregnant women were killed in those cities, the children in their wombs would have been left inside the women, and eventually would have died, or the children would have been removed from the womb, and then killed by the Israelites. Either way, they could not have saved the children inside the women, because to do so would have been to disobey God’s command to leave alive nothing that breathes.

I don’t see any good reason why those people had to die. The pregnant women could have been spared at least until after they had weaned their infants. The Israelites could have adopted the infants and young children and raised them as their own (and once they came of age, given them their parent’s and grandparent’s possessions, which were rightfully theirs; more on that later). They also could have adopted the special needs people and integrated them into the community.

If the matter was so serious those people had to die, God could have and should have taken care of the problem Himself rather than foisting such a horrific and psychologically scarring task upon mere mortals. This becomes even more apparent when we consider other instances in the Old Testament and New Testament where God does end people’s lives himself.

Look at modern soldiers who have to shoot children who have RPGs aimed at their humvee-that scars them. Just imagine how scarring it would be to put pregnant women, infants, young children, and special needs people to death with a sword. Imagine being haunted for the rest of your life by the faces of the innocent children you killed.

I will say this: At least killing them all is more merciful than leaving some of them alive to suffer the trauma and pain of lost family members and friends (I’ll deal with this again when I address Numbers 31). Perhaps that was the reasoning; some people had to die, so the fair and merciful thing to do was kill them all. I can’t disagree with that line of reasoning if some people among them had to die, but then I still take issue with the fact that God foisted the task of killing them all with swords onto mortals when He was fully capable of carrying out the necessary work Himself.

Ezekiel 9

For another example of a command to kill, consider Ezekiel 9:3-8: “3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his waist. 4 And the Lord said to him, “Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” 5 And to the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. 6 Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the house. 7 Then he said to them, “Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go out.” So they went out and struck in the city. 8 And while they were striking, and I was left alone, I fell upon my face, and cried, “Ah, Lord God! Will you destroy all the remnant of Israel in the outpouring of your wrath on Jerusalem?”

Much like the command I covered first, there’s really no reason the pregnant women, infants, young children, and special needs people could not have been spared.

As an aside, the fact that this passage actually explicitly identifies young children as a category of people to be killed, unlike Deuteronomy 20:10-18, is disturbing.

Joshua 6

Joshua 6:20-21: “20 So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they captured the city. 21 Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.”

Here, it explicitly says young people were killed with a sword. Refer back to what I mentioned about the different ways to kill people with a sword. Again, that is horrifying.

It’s also disturbing, albeit not as much, that innocent animals were put to death here. The life of an oxen, sheep, or donkey is nowhere near comparable in terms of value to the life of a human, but they are still valuable and have a personality, and depending upon your viewpoint on animal souls, they have souls.

Numbers 31:1-18

“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites. Afterward you shall be gathered to your people.” 3 So Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Arm men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian to execute the Lord's vengeance on Midian. 4 You shall send a thousand from each of the tribes of Israel to the war.” 5 So there were provided, out of the thousands of Israel, a thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand armed for war. 6 And Moses sent them to the war, a thousand from each tribe, together with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, with the vessels of the sanctuary and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand. 7 They warred against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every male. 8 They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. And they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword. 9 And the people of Israel took captive the women of Midian and their little ones, and they took as plunder all their cattle, their flocks, and all their goods. 10 All their cities in the places where they lived, and all their encampments, they burned with fire, 11 and took all the spoil and all the plunder, both of man and of beast. 12 Then they brought the captives and the plunder and the spoil to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the people of Israel, at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

13 Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the chiefs of the congregation went to meet them outside the camp. 14 And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. 15 Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? 16 Behold, these, on Balaam's advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. 17 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. 18 But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him keep alive for yourselves.”

It's unclear who among the Midianites, God originally wanted the Israelites to kill. Regardless of who He originally wanted them to kill, He apparently had with no issue with what Moses commanded in this passage, as Moses is never reprimanded for it, nor does the Bible say “Oh hey, what Moses commanded there was wrong.”

Going off of what the text says, again we have infants and young children being killed by humans for no good reason.

What about the girls Moses said to keep alive? Any of them who had infant brothers and/or young brothers would have had to deal with the trauma of losing their brothers, as well as the basic change of no longer having their brothers in their lives. For the girls who were especially caring and “maternal”, this would have been tragic. For the girls who were close to their brothers, this would have been devastating, not to mention causing permanent psychological damage if they witnessed their brothers being put to death.

I can remember being some age between 5 and 10 years old, and my cousin stepping on a nail at my grandparents’ house. He came inside hollering, almost screaming, there was blood everywhere, and it horrified and disturbed me. I remember being worried he was going to die, and the thought of him dying scared me. Now, imagine what it would have been like for one of those Midianite girls if they had seen their brothers killed, or even if they had not seen them killed, just dealing with the loss of them.

Look back at all the horrific stuff that has happened in the world in the last 70+ years.

Is the church and apologetics community just so incredibly detached from reality or from what the text clearly says that they cannot see how messed up this is?

There’s a few other issues I have with this passage.

Why were women who had already had sex with a man put to death? What happened to the women who were still virgins? The text says nothing about what happened to them. If they were kept alive, much like what I mentioned with the young girls, that had to have been a rough experience. What if they had one or more sisters who had had sex already? What if they had nephews who were infants and/or young children? Isn't that going to be incredibly heartbreaking, damaging, and perhaps crippling?

How did they determine which of the girls were virgins?

If it was any sort of physical examination, it should be clear how gross, disturbing, and outright evil that is, especially considering that it says “young girls.”

Would you be ok with your daughter being subjected to that? If not, then why was it ok for the daughters of a people group back then to be subjected to that?

If the method that they used to determine which girls were virgins was not invasive, like some type of cultural ornamentation, clothing, etc, or taking peoples’ word for it, that method is not guaranteed to give you accurate information. If are going to be kill people, you want the method that you are using to determine who lives and who dies to be reliable….

Whichever method they used, there’s a problem.

Also, it says keep the young girls alive *for yourselves*...Whatever type of role (work slave, sex slave, concubine, wife, etc) that they desired for them, I highly doubt the young girls had the choice to stay in that role or not...Considering that it says “keep the young girls who are virgins alive for yourselves”, it’s pretty clear what the implication is. Just going off of basic human psychology, I highly doubt they would have been thrilled at the prospect of being sex slaves, concubines, or wives to men who had killed their parents, grandparents, and brothers.

Do keep in mind these young girls had apparently not done anything to deserve the fate of being kept by the Israelites, *for* the Israelites, without their consent. Maybe there are some circumstances where you can say someone got what was coming to them. Not so here. This is not some “divine punishment” or “divine justice” being carried out. You can’t just trample on people’s right to give or not give consent, and especially not the right of a young girl to give or not give consent.

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